Film Fiasco - October/November 2006 By John Michael Higgins For Your Consideration is the latest film from the Christopher Guest & Eugene Levy team that has defined the term mockumentary through This is Spinal Tap, Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show and A Mighty Wind. Biting the calloused industry hand that feeds it, the film is, in the words of company player John Michael Higgins, "about a group of film artists who are suddenly confronted with the possibility of their own success, much as one is confronted suddenly by the smell of a rat that has died in the wall behind the washing machine. The film they are making is Home For Purim, a Yiddish Southern Gothic World War II Homecoming yarn without a single laugh." Breaking the pieces of Hollywood down into its core incompetencies , FYC mockily considers the role the following characters play in the phenomenon that is "award-season buzz:" Thank goodness that For Your Consideration is just a fictional mockumentary - it'd be awful if this represented real Hollywood hopefuls! THE PUBLICIST (played by John Michael Higgins) is Corey Taft of Corey Taft & Associates, and no, there have never been any associates. Corey Taft, a brazen redhead with hypertension, is fiercely proud of his Indian blood (Choctaw) and is under the impression that Hollywood's biggest deals are made at the Hamburger Hamlet on Sunset. He returns to publicity after a semi-voluntary five-year hiatus during which he was strapped to a gurney and believed himself to be Miss Tuesday Weld. THE ACTORS Brian Chubb (Christopher Moynihan) is a young actor out of the Boise School of Dramatic Arts. He studied mime in Paris with the great Jean-Louis Toques shortly before and a bit after the legend's on-stage death during his signature "Death of a Lonely Beggar." Before the film, his best credit was a children's theater gig as Baron von Meanie in "The Prince and the Unicorn." Victor Allen Miller (Harry Shearer) is a journeyman actor best known for his long-running commercial as Irv the Footlong Weiner for Felber's Kosher Hot Dogs. His résumé is long: He was the youngest actor ever to receive an Obie nomination for his portrayal of "Jimmy" in "Grandma's Secret Box." He lost. Callie Webb (Parker Posey) started in comedy clubs like Chortles and Jerry Seltzer's Laff Emporium, then moved on to improv (The Ad-Lib Players) and finally to a humorless one-woman show called No Penis Intended. She is currently dating her co-star, Brian Chubb (above), and finds the challenge of playing a lesbian not very challenging. Marilyn Hack (Catherine O'Hara) enjoyed her biggest success as Imogene, the blind prostitute ("you have to hand it to her"), in ex-husband Leonard Ross's hit play A Song for Reuben. Then it was down to a trickle before signing on for a recurring gig on the hospital drama "Last Hope" and providing the voice for Pimples on "Yoke and Puff-Puff." She's the star of FYC, playing the dying matriarch Esther. After all these years, Oscar buzz! THE DIRECTOR (Christopher Guest) is Jay Berman. Jay Berman holds the record for most pilots that never translated to series - around eighteen. Purim is his first theatrical feature, though his most notable TV movie was an adaptation of "Grandma's Secret Box" (above), unfortunately pre-empted by the coverage of the death of Jean-Louis Toques (above). THE PRODUCER (Jennifer Coolidge) is Whitney Taylor Brown, heiress to the Brown Diaper Service fortune. She was drawn to the theater and used her portfolio to finance such off-Broadway plays as A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Pants. She is producing here for Sunfish Classics, run by the British ex-pat Martin Gibb (Ricky Gervais) who ascended the studio ladder with a shotgun wedding to Pippa Longhaven, daughter of the Vice President of Business Affairs. Although Martin is still very much alive, he is survived by his daughter Clovis. THE AGENT (Eugene Levy) is Morey Orfkin of the Dorfman-Orfkin Agency. In its day, DOA was a viable alternative to a good agency. When his partner, Dorfman, died, the exodus of talent from the agency was Biblical, leaving Orfkin, never considered the brains of the operation, with actors like Victor Allen Miller (above) for whom leaving any agency is always ill-advised. These are the men and women who will take a small independent film like Purim and somehow make it even smaller. FYC is loaded with other characters played by the notable likes of Fred Willard and Ed Begley Jr. and Jane Lynch, film artists all, and not one of them likely to make a name for him- or herself. Unless the Oscar buzz is legitimate? | 
